"Hurrah!" exclaimed Jack, rushing into the berth, and throwing up his cap; "there's a chance of a brush this time and no mistake. The gun-room officers say that the French are certain to be at war with us by this time. They are going to help Mehemet Ali, so if the stranger is not a Frenchman, she is pretty certain to be an Egyptian, and either one or the other will do." The information was received in the berth with general satisfaction. Only one person heard it with dismay. That was Pigeon. He turned very pale. "What shall I do? Where shall I go?" he exclaimed. "I didn't come here to fight. Couldn't I be put on shore?" "No, but you can keep below and help the doctor, where you may be of use and out of harm's way, if we don't go down, or blow up during the action," said Murray, with no little disdain in the tone of his voice. "Oh! oh!" groaned Pigeon. "Go down, or blow up! Oh, dear!" CHAPTER SIX. PADDY ADAIR, HURRAH! The beautiful frigate looked like a vast cloud of snowy whiteness, as, with studding-sails alow and aloft, she swept proudly along over the blue waters of the Mediterranean in chase of the stranger. The latter had been standing to the eastward; but seeing herself pursued, she also altered her course, and ran off before the wind towards the land. Night was coming on, and it was very important to get up with her, near enough to ascertain her character, to prevent her escaping, should such be her design, in the dark. Every one was on deck or in the tops, looking out at the stranger, and those considered themselves fortunate who could command the use of a spyglass. One person--bully Pigeon--was below, and he sat quaking on a chest in the orlop deck, where he had been told that he would be least likely to have his head shot away. "I am a non-combatant, you know. It would be very wrong in me to expose my life," he observed with a trembling lip. "If I was one of you, of course I would do my duty as bravely as anybody; but as I am a civilian, and am come aboard for my health, I think it is my duty to take care of myself." "Oh! of course," was the reply; "so precious a person should run no risk of losing his valuable life." "Oh, I wish poor Adair were with us," exclaimed Jack. "He did so wish to see a real fight; and to have to go out of the world without having been in one was very trying." Jack spoke just as his feelings for the moment prompted him, without much consideration, I suspect. "Do you know, Rogers, that since we escaped in so wonderful a way from drowning, I have more than once thought that perhaps some of the people of the _Onyx_ may have been saved," observed Murray. "I do not say that I have any great hopes on the subject, but still I cannot help thinking that it is possible." "I'm afraid not, though; we should have heard of them before now," replied Jack. "But if anybody escaped, I would rather it were Paddy Adair than any one else."